4 killed in fiery airplane crash

Cessna goes down near Palwaukee

January 31, 2006|By Colleen Mastony and Jamie Francisco, Tribune staff reporters. Freelance reporter Carolyn Rusin and Tribune staff reporters Mary Fergus and Richard Wronski contributed to this story, which was written by staff reporter John Keilman.

A twin-engine Cessna airplane went down in Wheeling as it approached Palwaukee Municipal Airport on Monday night, killing the pilot and three passengers in a fiery crash whose cause remains a mystery.

Officials said that about 6:30 p.m., a Cessna 421B coming from Olathe, Kan., tumbled from the sky a half-mile southwest of the airport. One witness, Mike Donis, 18, of Prospect Heights, said it had appeared to be heading for a safe landing when it began to spiral downward.

Authorities said the eight-passenger plane, registered to a Delaware company, did not issue distress signals before it slammed nose down into a construction storage lot at 300 Alderman Lane in Wheeling. No one on the ground was hurt, but the aircraft disintegrated on impact, instantly turning the night sky orange with flame and sending black smoke billowing upward.

"We saw everything light up like it was daytime," said Matt Glowa, 15, of Mt. Prospect. "Then everything just went dark."

When firefighters extinguished the blaze, they found four people on board, all apparently adults and burned beyond recognition, said Wheeling Fire Chief Keith MacIsaac. Their identities were not released Monday night.

It was the second crash near Palwaukee in less than seven months. In August, a pilot who had just taken off from the airport lost power in an engine and was attempting to return for an emergency landing when he overshot the runway and clipped a nearby building.

The pilot and his passenger received only minor injuries. The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating that accident.

Monday night officials were examining the wreckage, spread over a 20-foot by 30-foot area illuminated by floodlights. The only recognizable parts of the plane were tires and a wing, MacIsaac said, and a large amount of fuel was on the ground.

Mike Pirron, owner of DeGraf Concrete Construction, said the plane struck the back of his 2-acre property. Firefighters had to break through its gates to reach the crash site, and Pirron said that after being alerted by the company's security system, he arrived to find nothing left of the aircraft but debris.

"It's a plane that's all wrecked," he said. "It's in pieces."

David Skalis, who works at Absolute Turn Inc., a parts manufacturer near the crash site, said "flames were higher than the roof of the building" that the plane narrowly missed hitting.

One piece of evidence authorities have already reviewed is footage from a nearby security camera that captured the last few moments before the crash.

The last fatal crash at Palwaukee occurred in October 1996, when an executive jet crashed and burned while taking off in windy conditions. The pilot and three passengers were killed, and the NTSB later faulted the pilot for not aborting the takeoff and the co-pilot for not taking "sufficient remedial action."

Rob Mark, a Palwaukee spokesman, said it appeared the plane Monday may have been circling or lining up to make an approach from the southwest when the crash occurred. Typically, pilots like to head into the wind when landing.

"That makes it go as slow as possible," he said.

Mark could not confirm wind direction, but he believed the wind may have been coming out of the north or northeast.

Palwaukee has approximately 350 to 400 takeoffs and landings a day, Mark said.

Employees of companies near the crash reported being startled by a noise like an explosion when the plane came down.

Jeff Deming, 28, of Hanover Park, a machinist at Absolute Turn, said the noise was loud enough to be heard in the machine shop.

"We just heard a boom, then a few more after that," Deming said. "They were all pretty loud."